Napalm Death

Earlier this month the inaugural BARGE TO HELL cruise sailed from Miami, FL to Nassau, Bahamas and back and featured live performances by forty-two metal bands. Hellbound.ca was lucky enough to have been able to send some of its contributors on the cruise and here is what they had to say about the performances that took place on Day number three.

Live reviews by Adrien Begrand and Sean Palmerston. All photography by Albert Mansour unless listed otherwise.

Last week the inaugural BARGE TO HELL cruise sailed from Miami, FL to Nassau, Bahamas and back and featured live performances by forty-two death, thrash and black metalbands. Hellbound.ca was lucky enough to have been able to send some of its contributors on the cruise and here is what they had to say about getting to Miami and the first evening’s performances.
Introduction by Sean Palmerston with live reviews by Adrien Begrand and Sean Palmerston. All photography by Albert Mansour unless listed otherwise

Recently The End Records acquired the rights to the catalogue of Music For Nations, an excellent British label which closed its doors in 2004. When the label folded into Zomba Music, which was owned by BMG which is now owned by Universal, many of the ‘smaller’ releases were discontinued or lost. The End Records has jumped in and brought many of these releases back to North America, some for the first time as domestic releases. Since there are so many of these, I’m going to break them up into a few different articles (hope you don’t mind) and keep the reviews relatively short.

“If you’re a fan of extreme metal and you live in North America, it’s likely that you have a strong impulse to attend the continent’s biggest annual festival: Maryland Deathfest. Actually attending the fest, however, isn’t always possible, especially if you live thousands of miles away.”

Part two of Jay H. Gorania’s recap of Maryland Deathfest 2012, with live photos by Albert Mansour.

“If you’re a fan of extreme metal and you live in North America, it’s likely that you have a strong impulse to attend the continent’s biggest annual festival: Maryland Deathfest. Actually attending the fest, however, isn’t always possible, especially if you live thousands of miles away.”

Part one of Jay H. Gorania’s recap of Maryland Deathfest 2012, with live photos by Albert Mansour.

In short, MMXII by Killing Joke is one mighty fine follow-up record to its illustrious predecessor. The album has all the hallmarks of a great record. It has the songs, boundless energy and all the apocalyptic themes to do for.

When Napalm Death made their much-anticipated trek across Canada last fall, I set my sights on sitting down with vocalist Barney Greenway, as he’s someone I’ve long admired as an elder statesman among forward-thinking, politically-minded metalheads. With the now-released new Napalm album Utilitarian still a few months from release, Mr. Greenway and I sat down to chat on the date of their Vancouver stop, last October 27th, over an undrunk cup of tea at Hastings & Main’s Ovaltine Café…

You can sit and stew in your cynicism; you can bemoan the state of the world. You could even pour scorn on anarchist thought. But you cannot deny that Better To Die… is a triumph of political thought turned into genuinely innovative and inspiring action.